Culture
From 1984 to 2017, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. earned a position on Fortune magazine's annual list of the U.S. "100 Best Companies to Work For".[13] Its European operations have also earned similar honors.[13]
Gore's culture evolved from the company's success with small teams during its early years. This approach to business was based on Bill Gore's experience tackling problems with "task force teams" while he was employed at the DuPont Company. They were usually multidisciplinary operated for short periods of time outside the company's formal management hierarchy.
Bill Gore presented the concept of a "lattice" organization to Gore associates in 1967. He refined this to "culture principles" in a paper entitled "The Lattice Organization – A Philosophy of Enterprise", which was distributed to Gore associates in 1976.[14] He proposed a flat, lattice-like organizational structure where everyone shares the same title of "associate". There are neither chains of command nor predetermined channels of communication. Leaders replace the idea of "bosses". Associates choose to follow leaders rather than have bosses assigned to them. Associate contribution reviews are based on a peer-level rating system.
He articulated four culture principles that he called freedom, fairness, commitment and waterline:
In the lattice organization, associates are encouraged to communicate directly with each other and are accountable to fellow members of their teams. Hands-on product innovation and prototyping are encouraged. Teams typically organize around opportunities, new product concepts, or businesses. As teams evolve, leaders frequently emerge as they gain followership. This unusual organizational structure and culture has been shown to be a significant contributor to associate satisfaction and retention.[15]
This corporate culture was highlighted in Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book, The Tipping Point and in Brian Carney and Isaac Getz's 2009 book, Freedom, Inc..[16][17][18][19] The company was also depicted as one of several organizations denoted "Teal" organizations in Frederic Laloux's 2014 book Reinventing Organizations.
Today, the lattice organization principle is known as open allocation.
- Associates have the freedom to encourage, help, and allow other associates to grow in knowledge, skill, and scope of responsibility
- Associates should demonstrate fairness to each other and everyone with whom they come in contact
- Associates are provided the ability to make one's own commitments and are expected to keep them
- A waterline situation involves consultation with other associates before undertaking actions that could impact the reputation or profitability of the company and otherwise "sink the ship".
